MAKE THE BIG SCORE: Maximizing the Trac System For Student Athletes

With nearly a half a million NCAA student-athletes, tutoring and learning centers are experiencing more and more traffic from this group. Fewer than 2 percent of NCAA student-athletes go on to be professional athletes so student-athletes depend on academics to prepare them for life after college. On average, student athletes require strong time-management skills and some thoughtful planning with academic advisors.

Trac Systems can help you track and support this special population of students!

Setting Up Custom Field for Student-Athletes

First and foremost, we need to set up your system to recognize student-athletes. We will utilize one of the custom student fields, which can be imported from your SIS. With this info, we can create Athletic Student Lists.  This data can feed into reports that can even be sent automatically to coaches. This will also allow other users the ability to quickly and easily identify a student as an athlete. Along with using the custom fields to track the Athletic Sport, you can also customize a field to keep track of the hours of tutoring/advising that your athletes are required to have.

(NOTE: If you are currently not tracking this information you will need to work with your IT department and Redrock Software to update your current import.)

Adding Athletes to a Custom List Based off the Student Custom Field

Now that this information is being tracked, we can easily identify a student as an Athlete which allows us the ability to isolate these students, add them to a list and run specific reports for those Athletes.  These lists can be created by using the Power Search feature of the Trac System. By utilizing the Power Search this allows us to set up specific criteria that can be saved as a dynamic list. A dynamic list will automatically get updated every time the import runs.

Automatic Reports

Now that we have created these individual lists we can set up daily or weekly reports that can be sent to the coaches, regarding only their athletes, if you want that to occur. This nightly report allows Coaches to address behaviors or issues as soon as possible.

Below we see an example of a report that the coach can receive. This will show only the students for their particular sport and will include visit information and any notes that were entered. This allows the coaches to be easily see which students are coming in for Tutoring/Advising, what they are working on, and session notes.

These reports can be automated to send Daily, Weekly, or Monthly and can be sent directly to the coaches! This helps save time and make sure that everyone is getting notified as needed.

Time Check Feature

The Time Check feature is a checkbox that can appear on the Log Student window that allows the student to check their hours for the week. This is helpful if your Athletes are required to attend tutoring/advising for a certain number of hours a week. The student can then check this box and then "log in" for a visit (see below):

Instead of being logged in for a visit, it will show a custom message with that students total hours for the week and how that compares to their required study hours.

Just the beginning….

Trac System is powerful and flexible for all your needs.  Managing student-athletes visits and monitoring their progress is one way you can keep students on track for graduation!

If you are interested in setting up any of the features in this week’s Newsletter or have any other questions please open at Ticket at our Helpdesk by visiting,

 https://helpdesk.go-redrock.com/.

Thank you for your continued support!

Hello Redrock Customers!

To everyone who attended our 2017 Annual Redrock Conference, we thank you for another successful year! We appreciate the time and energy you took to improve your knowledge of the Trac Systems. To everyone who could not make it to our conference…worry not! Here’s what you missed!

The first and most exciting part of this conference was getting an official look at the next version of the Trac System, Trac Cloud! Lead Developer and owner of Redrock Software, Kelly Corder, gave an exclusive look of some of the new and exciting features of TracCloud including scheduling, logging visits and reporting. TracCloud is the next revolutionary step in Center Management and will give Users greater control over their data and make management simpler than ever!  A few of the new features that were showcased are: 

• “View” feature: This brand new feature will give Users a new way to group, store, and report on their data; as well as allow Users to create “Custom Views” that can be saved and returned to at any time. 
• “Chart Generator”: This feature will allow Users to take any View into the new Chart Generator and have the option of creating Bar, Pie, or Line graphs of their data. In addition, any view will offer Users a CSV export option.

If you were not able to attend the conference you can still have access to a few short demo videos featuring the new TracCloud Dashboard and Student Entry, the Schedule and KIOSK Log-In, and the Student Listing and Views. We will also continue to post any updates about TracCloud to the following link:

https://www.go-redrock.com/traccloud-updates/ 

Along with these videos you can also access all of the session PowerPoints and handouts over the entire conference weekend. All this information can be found by clicking on the following link:

https://www.go-redrock.com/2017-conference-powerpoints/

We are already working and planning for next year’s conference which will be April 4th through the 7th, 2018.  Watch for new and exciting changes coming in the near future. Thank you!

Registration for the Redrock Conference Ends March 22^nd

We are just 8 short days from the close of registration for the 2017 Annual Redrock Conference! Registration will end on March 22^nd, 2017 and the Conference begins April 5^th - 8^th. We are very excited for this year’s conference because not only do we have various sessions for new and advanced Users, but we will also be introducing the first look at the next version of the Trac System! Trac Cloud is a revolutionary step in Center management and will give Users greater control over their Data and make Management simpler than ever.

We are also thrilled to announce that we have a total of 13 sessions presented by different Users of the application. This is a great opportunity to see how other Colleges utilize the software and how it is used on their campus. We always appreciate having customers present because it gives great insight into the everyday use of the Trac System and how it can be customized to fit your school’s needs. Below is also a copy of our Conference Schedule, so you can take a look at all the amazing sessions that will be at the 2017 Annual Redrock Conference!

You can register for the conference at:

https://www.go-redrock.com/conference/register/

Early Registration Ends Tomorrow!

With the 2017 Annual Redrock Conference fast approaching, the deadline for early registration is finally upon us!

 Early registration ends tomorrow February 22^nd, 2017 and the price will then increase by $30. The current rate is $329/person that increases to $359/person starting on February 23^rd.  Conference registration ends March 22^nd, 2017.

The Redrock Conference will be held on April 5-8, 2017 at the Hilton Phoenix/Chandler located in sunny Chandler, AZ. This is an amazing training opportunity and you don’t want to miss out on the early registration price! You can register for the Annual Redrock Conference by visiting, https://www.go-redrock.com/conference/register/. If you have any questions, you are more than welcome to contact us at https://helpdesk.go-redrock.com. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you in April!

Hello Trac Users!

We are excited for the new year and wanted to provide you some assistance to help you prepare your Trac application for the new semester.

You’ll find that it is filled with new information, helpful hints and tips, and even some new feature that you can explore.  We want this newsletter to be valuable for you so please, share your feedback and as always please let us know if you have any questions.

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An important note: Your imports contain student registrations specific to a term, the timing between changing your Term Code and importing your registrations is important.

 The First step is to have your IT updated the Student and Course Files to your server or the SFTP site

• If it is for the first time or have made any changes to the files then IT will need to send Redrock a sample file to create or update your import script.

The Second step, Change the Term Number

• As a SysAdmin- Go to the Trac Navigation -> Tracman Icon -> Utilities and Prefs -> System Prefs Tab -> CurrentTerm -> Change to the new term number -> Save.

The Third step, Change Semester Dates

• As a SysAdmin- Go to the Trac Navigation -> Tracman Icon -> Utilities and Prefs -> System Prefs Tab -> SemesterStart/ SemesterEnd -> Change to the new semester start and end date -> Save.

The Fourth step, Run the import

• As a SysAdmin- Go to the Trac Navigation -> Tracman Icon -> Utilities and Prefs -> Custom Utility -> Standard -> Import Student Data -> Execute.
• To view the status of you import, click on View Import Status -> click on Execute -> this will display if it has completed.

The Fifth step is to Activate Sections

• As a Center Profile Admin- Go to the Trac Navigation -> Search Glass -> Center Profile  -> click on you Profile -> Sections -> Subcenter Options -> Click on the subcenter name -> Check box in the middle to activate the sections OR to add all the sections to the center  Click on Subcenter Options -> Click on “Add These to (Center Name)”.

The next steps are optional since your center may or may not utilize these preferences

• Consultant Specialties
  • As a Center Profile Admin to add new sections or manually- Go to the Trac Navigation -> Search Glass -> Center Profile  -> Click on your Profile -> Consultants Tab -> Section Specialties  -> Check box to activate the sections -> Save.

• As a SysAdmin to copy the consultant specialties from previous term to the new term- Go to the Trac Navigation -> Tracman Icon -> Utilities and Prefs -> Custom Utility -> Standard -> Copy Specialties -> Add the previous Term and the current term -> Execute.

• Reset Center Status
  • First Step as a SysAdmin - Go to the Trac Navigation -> Tracman Icon -> Utilities and Prefs -> Custom Utility -> Standard -> Reset Center Status/Missed -> Check the boxes “Reset Total Missed Count” and “Set Center Status to (leave blank)”-> Execute.

• Second Step as a Center Profile Admin - Go to the Trac Navigation -> Search Glass -> Center Profile  -> Click on you Profile -> Prefs Tab -> Scheduling Tab -> change the date in “Student max missed:” -> Save.

• Third Step as a SysAdmin - Go to the Trac Navigation -> Search Glass -> Students  -> Search for “Inactive” Students -> Trac Navigation -> Tracman Icon -> Utilities and Prefs ->  Change Value -> Field: “Special Status”-> Value: (Blank) or Active -> Execute.

• Other Settings  - Max Appointment Rule
  • As a Center Profile Admin - Go to the Trac Navigation -> Search Glass -> Center Profile  -> Click on your Profile -> Prefs Tab -> Scheduling Tab -> Max Appointment Rules -> Update any date that is using the preference -> Save.

• Other Settings  - Other Scheduling Block
  • As a Center Profile Admin - Go to the Trac Navigation -> Search Glass -> Center Profile  -> Click on your Profile -> Prefs Tab -> Scheduling Tab -> Other Scheduling Block -> Update any date that is using the preference -> Save.

It's the best time of the year… Time to Register for the Redrock Conference!

The 2017 Annual Redrock Software Conference will be held April 5^th-8^th at the Hilton Phoenix/Chandler located in Chandler, Arizona. The conference will offer many sessions covering a variety of topics about the Trac Systems.

Are you a new customer looking to become more familiar with your Trac System but don’t know where to start? We have many beginner sessions that will cover all the basic features and by the end of the conference you will become a skilled Trac user! In addition to sessions for the beginner, numerous sessions will cover more advanced topics to engage the most experienced Trac user and increase your current knowledge of the Trac System. Knowledge is power and with a better understanding of the Trac System and its countless configurations, it can be a powerful tool to enhance your services.

Annual Maintenance subscribers can register for $329 per person with discounts available for multiple attendees. We are also offering a 50% discount for all attendees that would like to present a session at our conference. We encourage customers to showcase how they utilize the Trac System to help other customers see the various ways the Trac System can be applied and customized.

Register now by visiting our website, https://www.go-redrock.com/conference/ and click “Register Now!”  The conference is an amazing learning opportunity and a chance to meet with fellow Trac users and build a network of relationships and resources that lasts long after the conference is over. We look forward to seeing you at the 2017 Annual Redrock Conference!